Bob Wolfenson has been a photographer for 35 years. He was raised in Bom Retiro, a jewish neighborhood set in the central area of São Paulo. During the 1980s, he spent a year in New York City, where he assisted the american fashion photographer Bill King. On his return to Brazil, inspired by his experience in the USA, a prolific period of his career takes off: dedicating to fashion photography, he collaborates with the most important Brazilian magazines and international advertising agencies.
In the 1990s, he establishes himself as one of the most distinguished Brazilian photographers. Jardim da Luz, a book made from portraits of renowned Brazilians, and its exhibition held in MASP (São Paulo Museum of Art), acknowledges the eminence of his work.
In 1995, he is laureated by Funarte (the Ministry of Culture’s Foundation for the Arts) as best art photographer of the year. In the following year, he receives the Phytoervas Fashion Awards as best fashion photographer.
His most eclectic trait arises during the 2000s, when he conceives 55, a luxurious magazine devoted to Brazilian visual arts and culture. Attaining only to its second issue, 55 is followed by S/N.
For the 2003 São Paulo Fashion Week, he performs an exhibition of fashion portraits called Moda no Brasil por brasileiros (fashion in Brazil, by Brazilians), settled in the Bienal de São Paulo’s pavilion during the occasion. The exhibition unfolds in the homonymous book, published by Cosac&Naify.
In 2004, the Museu de Arte Brasileira – FAAP hosts a grand exhibition that gathers two different personal projects. Once again, it is turned into a book: Encadernação Dourada – Antifachada (Golden Binding – Antifaçade), also carried out by Cosac&Naify.
An ad campaign for Grendene, modeled by Gisele Bündchen, earns him the first prize for advertising photography, offered by Conrado Wessel Foundation, in 2005.
In his work A Caminho do Mar, inspired by his childhood memories, the photographer explores the refinery areas from the industrial city of Cubatão. Its exhibition takes place at Galeria Millan, São Paulo, in 2007. In the same year, São Paulo Fashion Week invites him to author the pictures of a calendar stared by the most prominent Brazilian models.
In 2008, the publisher Schoeler releases his book Cinepolis, a work that highlights the melancholic and wrecked aspects of everyday life thru a cinematographic point of view. The Museu de Arte Moderna da Bahia turns his book into an exhibition a year later. In 2011, the work is redisplayed at Galeria da Gávea, in Rio de Janeiro.
His next project, Apreensões, was exhibited at Centro Universitario Maria Antônia and afterwards at SP-Foto fairy. It thoroughly unmasked the inwards of the warehouses that lodges illegal goods seized by the law. He travelled around the country, shooting apprehended drugs, cars, wild animals and guns, in what he called “an inventory of a certain Brazilian tragedy”. The book Apreensões was published by Cosac&Naify.
Bob recollected his childhood memories for the collective exhibition Bom Retiro e Luz: Um Roteiro, 1976 – 2011, a tribute to the tradicional neighbourhoods of São Paulo. Designed for the Centro de Cultura Judaica de São Paulo in 2011.
Some of his clients in the field of advertising and fashion are: Volkswagen, Itaú, L’Oreal, Vivara, Arezzo, Mitsubishi, Claro, C&A, Vivo, Credicard, Tim, Riachuelo-Osklen, not to mention the notorious fashion magazines Vogue, Elle, Wallpaper, Photo, amongst others.
Honored by many awards, Bob keeps working tirelessly in São Paulo for the main national and international magazines and publishers. His work composes substantial art collections (MASP, Itaú Cultural, Museu de Arte Brasileira – FAAP, MAM-SP, Coleção Pirelli Masp, etc.).